| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from When a Man Marries by Mary Roberts Rinehart: Selina might be with them urged them to make the most of this
last night of freedom. I tried to be jolly, and succeeded in
being feverish. Mr. Harbison did not come up to enjoy what he had
wrought. Jim brought up his guitar and sang love songs in a
beautiful tenor, looking at Bella all the time. And Bella sat in
a steamer chair, with a rug over her and a spangled veil on her
head, looking at the boats on the river--about as soft and as
chastened as an an acetylene headlight.
And after Max had told the most improbable tale, which Leila
advised him to sprinkle salt on, and Dallas had done a clog
dance, Bella said it was time for her complexion sleep and went
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Case of the Registered Letter by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: "No; he had a comfortable little income and need have no fear for
the future. John was, of course, too young a man to settle down
and do nothing. But the only definite plans he had made were that
we should travel a little at first, and then he would look about
him for a congenial occupation. I always thought it likely he
would resume a law practice somewhere. I cannot understand in the
slightest what the plans are to which the letter referred."
"And do you think, from what you know of his state of mind when
you saw him last, that he would be likely so soon to be planning
pleasures like this?"
"No, no indeed! John was terribly crushed when my guardian insisted
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Red Seal by Natalie Sumner Lincoln: Penfield flushed as one of the jurors snickered, but he did not
repeat his previous question, asking instead, "Was there good
feeling between you and Mr. Turnbull?"
"I never quarreled with him," replied McIntyre. "I really saw
little of him as, whenever he called at the house, he came to see
one or the other of my daughters, or both."
"When did you last see Mr. Turnbull?" inquired Penfield.
"He was at the house on Sunday and I had quite a talk with him,"
McIntyre leaned back in his chair and regarded the neat crease in
his trousers with critical eyes. "I last saw Turnbull going out
of the street door."
The Red Seal |
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: wisdom, nor the prosperous in his prosperity, nor the luxurious
in his wantonness, nor he that dreameth of security of life in
that vain and feeble security of his dreams, nor any man in any
of those things that men on earth commend ('tis like the
boundless rush of torrents that discharge themselves into the
deep sea, thus fleeting and temporary are all present things);
then, I say, I understood that all such things are vanity, and
that their enjoyment is naught; and, that even as the past is all
buried in oblivion, be it past glory, or past kingship, or the
splendour of rank, or amplitude of power, or arrogance of
tyranny, or aught else like them, so also present things will
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